


Multiverses Don't Work Like That

by TravelerInspired



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), DCU, Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Multi, Multiverse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 19:54:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TravelerInspired/pseuds/TravelerInspired
Summary: I died, woke up, hyperventilated, and realized I was in another universe.  This has some potential for fun!  It's the Arrowverse? Shit.
Comments: 1





	Multiverses Don't Work Like That

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Harry Potter: The Lone Traveller](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/775656) by The Professional. 



> I'm so sorry. It's my first fic, please give constructive criticism.

I’m fairly certain I died today.

Let me explain, I distinctly remember walking with my friends and crossing the street just ahead of them, and then suddenly having a face full of a moving truck’s grill. I don’t know why it was moving so fast in the middle of my neighborhood, or why I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t even have time to have any dramatic last words or even think ‘ _ oh shit, _ ’ it was pretty much instant death. So why the hell am I alive, let alone standing in a very unfamiliar alleyway in a city I only kind of recognize? This looks like a city I saw used on a TV show, but that’d be stupid because that city is in Canada, on the other side of North America from where I just was. 

I step out of the alley, looking for any sort of sign of where the actual hell I am and how I got here. Looking around I see something that makes no goddamn sense.  _ Queen Consolidated _ was written in bright green lettering on the side of a skyscraper. I’m in Arrow. I’m in Starling City.  _ What the actual FUCK _ . 

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck fuckity fuck fucking fuck.

I’ve finally cracked.

I can’t be in Starling City, it’s a fictional goddamn city from a TV show that I watched only long enough for the other shows to start coming out and jumped ship after season four.  _ Why the fuck am I hallucinating Starling City!? _ I figured that when I finally went insane I’d just start attacking people or something, why am I in Starling City!?

I finally stopped staring at the skyscraper that shouldn’t exist, turned around, walked back into the alley, sat down, and tried to stop hyperventilating. 

_ Ok, go over what you know. _ Right. Ok, my name is Ruby. I am twenty years old and I’m from Ohio, the most boring place on Earth. This morning I got hit by a truck. Ok, so I probably died. I’m probably not hallucinating as  _ why on earth would I be hallucinating this out of all things? _ I died, I’m not where I was, and there is a fictional headquarters of a fictional company right there.  _ Son of a bitch did I get isekai’d? _ That seems to be the most likely, good, but completely ridiculous answer.

I peek my head back around the corner.

Yep, the impossible building is still there.

.

.

…

_ SON OF A BITCH, I GOT ISEKAI’D. _

* * *

I’m secure enough to admit I cried in that alley for several hours after I realized I was never going to see my loved ones ever again. I am going to need so much therapy. But first I’m going to need money to pay for a therapist, and that involved leaving the alley. Step one of my brilliant plan to get a therapist? Find out the date. 

I’m in luck, as there is a random newspaper tossed on the ground in my alley that looks relatively new.

April 13th, 2002.

Well shit.

I have ten years until season one of Arrow begins. Well, at least I have enough time to prepare. 

Ok, that’s enough time to get some sort of degree in the  _ absolute bullshit _ they refer to as engineering here, which will allow me to get money, and maybe join an organization like Star Labs or The Time Bureau? Nah, Star Labs is a terrible idea, I’ll want to avoid Eobard Thawne completely if at all possible. But if I can get my hands on a Time Courier… the possibilities become endless. If I can get a Time Courier, that’ll let me teleport across time, stealing an interdimensional extrapolator from Cisco sometime after season 2 of the Flash becomes child’s play. With all of time and space at my fingertips, finding a good therapist should be no problem. And maybe I’ll help out a few heroes along the way. I just need to spend the next year setting up an identity, then finding a job to get a car and a shitty apartment, then finding a good college. After that, it's just a minimum of seven years of college, then spending four years building a resume not even Rip Hunter could ignore, until 2013, when he founded the Bureau.

This ought to be fun.

…

…

I still have to actually get up and leave the alley.

* * *

So creating a whole identity from scratch is really hard, and I have no idea how to do it. The internet is a godsend, I can’t wait for it to get good in this universe. In the meantime, to the library!

* * *

Big Belly Burger really is just as good as everyone says. They also pay $7.50 an hour.

$7.50 an hour  _ in 2002. _

I love Big Belly Burger.

* * *

I now remember why I hated school so much. It was the early morning and  _ finals _ .

All hail the mighty god of caffeine!

* * *

I know it’s been five years since I took a physics class, and it was in another universe, but I’m fairly certain  _ that’s not how that works, that's not how any of that works, what the fuck do you mean it’s been done!? _

* * *

Ok, so science in this universe is completely broken and basically magic. I’m  _ so _ going to exploit the hell out of this, and I  _ will _ be doing a mad scientist laugh the whole time. 

* * *

Seven, long, long,  _ long _ , years later and I now have a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I still understand nothing.

Why did I do that?

Oh, right. The Plan ™,  which I came up with years ago, in an alley, while panicking. 

So, what’s next again?

Right! Resume! And so very much student debt!

* * *

I am so glad I signed up for defense lessons during college, I would have been screwed otherwise. I almost forgot this was a superhero universe for a second, with super villains.

Then the Queen’s Gambit sank.

So it begins.

* * *

Kord Industries R&D is a worse job than Big Belly Burger, but two years there looks really good on my resume. 

Wayne Industries is so much more fun. I can’t believe no one has figured out Bruce is Batman yet, I mean seriously, I just got to test a  _ bat-themed taser that works through body armor _ , and I got  _ paid  _ to do it. Maybe that’s why no one has spilled yet, we get to do some really cool shit with some damn good funding.

Oh, crap there goes half of Starling City. I never thought I’d say this, but I am so glad I live in Gotham.

* * *

I almost don’t want to leave my WayneTech job, but TIME TRAVEL. Rip Hunter better love my resume. And I really have to ask him where to get a coat like that.

* * *

I got the job, I start training tomorrow. I can’t believe that actually  _ WORKED _ . Eleven years in the making and I finally managed to actually join the Time Bureau. Now to convince them to give me a time machine.

* * *

So apparently there’s “procedure” and “training” to go through in order to get a time courier. I’m beginning to think I should have just slept with Gary and stolen his. They haven’t actually hired Gary yet, but it could still work! No, it won’t. Maybe I should just sleep with Rip?

* * *

So Mr. Hunter has a very strict policy on not sleeping with coworkers,  _ which I know is bullshit, yes Gideon totally counts Rip _ , and also I would have never been able to steal his courier anyway, but maybe I wasn’t in it for the courier anyway. Don’t judge me, he’s hot, and it’s not like I just walked up and asked him to take me, he won’t even have dinner with me. Ava’s definitely not going to sleep with me, and I wouldn’t really want her to anyway. So I guess I’ll just do this the same way everyone else is. Training, hard work, and jumping to 2213, the year with all the Ava clones as soon as possible.

* * *

So I’ve decided to stick around the Bureau a while longer, I need more time to study the courier before I try to modify it so they can’t track me. I assume they can track me. I should probably ask.

* * *

So, good news, I’m definitely on Earth 1, not Earth-Prime! Moira Queen just got murdered.

Oh, yeah, they could definitely track me if I just stole the courier. This will take time and patience. 

Time to put my degree in impossible bullshit science to good use.

* * *

Good news! I have found a way to disconnect my courier from Time Bureau systems!

* * *

Bad news! I am now running away from the Time Bureau, a very pissed off Ava Sharpe, and Gary Greene. I’m only really concerned about Ava.

* * *

Gary just punched me in the face.

  
  


I mean it didn’t really do any damage, but still!

* * *

It was a very confused Cisco Ramon that watched as, during a previously quiet evening sometime in 2018, a large portal slid open in the cortex of Star Labs and a woman in a black leather trench coat ran out of it, and snatched an interdimensional extrapolator out of his hand.

“SORRY, GOTTA RUN!” yelled the woman as she  _ dived _ through another portal just like the one she came through, closing it behind her. 

It was an even more confused Cisco Ramon who just stared at the place the portal just closed when  _ another _ portal opened up and Time Bureau agents started pouring out of it, led by a dangerous-looking Ava Sharpe.

* * *

Maybe I should have checked what Earth this thing was set to before hopping in a portal. However, watching Supergirl and Lex Luthor duke it out above Shelley Island was quite the sight to see. It was also a dangerous one. I opened a time portal about fifty years in the past into an empty field, before any of the people currently trying to kill each other were born/ on earth.

* * *

Finally.

I can finally say it.

“I DID MY WAITING! TWELVE YEARS OF IT!”

Worth every single moment. Every damn essay, every moment filing paperwork, every moment biding my time.

I now have access to all of time and space, every universe’s time and space. And if the last twelve years have taught me anything, it’s that the multiverse is truly infinite. They all think so small, numbering universes. If I’m from a universe where everything I just lived is nothing but a story, who’s to say I can’t live the other stories? A true multiverse would mean  _ infinite _ earths, hell every time the timeline changes would create another one. The moment I arrived, a new universe was created, and the moment I time traveled, every time I changed things, more universes were created. Even though my actual impact on events from the shows was minuscule, I changed a lot. I could always just start in a fresh universe, where no one knows me, and the Time Bureau doesn’t want my head. 

Alright, step one: done, it only took a decade and change. What was step two again? Oh, right, time to explore the multiverse, become immortal, and find a way to gain shapeshifting powers. So, let's get started.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda hope to have this play out similar to the Lone Traveller series in the Harry Potter fandom, hopping between universes and times at will and such, but this is my first ever fic and I am not good at writing. So I literally just put what I would do if I ended up in the Arrowverse ten years before the beginning. I'm sorry about the lack of detail and the many, many massive time jumps, I don't know how to do beginnings. Please leave as much criticism as you feel is appropriate. Thank you for reading!


End file.
